Great western. One of my favorite John Wayne pictures and Jacob McCandles is definitely one of his best characters. But in watching it with my niece and nephew last week, the violence for a G rated film really stood out to me for the first time. I saw that it's been rerated PG-13 which might be a little much. PG would be fine but definitely not G.
share[deleted]
I agree it should have been rated M. I don't know how the producers got it done but they did it. I do know they wanted it rated G to get the family audiences.
shareOne of my all time favorite westerns!
Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E
The early days of the "G" rating would surprise you today.
"True Grit" (1969)got a "G" even though there's a scene where a guy chops another guy's fingers off with a big knife and then stabs him in the chest with it.
"The Italian Job"(original of 1969) opens with Michael Caine leaving prison and being greeted by a roomful of pretty hookers. "Which one do you want?" he is asked. "All of them," he replies. Rated "G."
I think the movie rating guys were used to the fact that before the "GMRX" code came in in 1968, entire families DID go to see John Wayne movies with bloody action and entire families DID go to see movies where hookers were featured on screen(as long as they weren't shown in "action.")
After awhile, "G" was moved on down to apply almost solely to "kiddie movies and cartoon features for little children."
Ironically, Disney and some other studios STOPPED WANTING the "G" rating because it seemed to drive off pre-teens. "G" = Kindergarten and younger, it seemed. So "one harmless bad word" would be put into the movie(like "damn" or "crap" or something like that) to get a "PG" even for a lot of Disney movies.
Big Jake was originally rated GP (now PG)when it was first released. Later it was changed to G. Now of course its PG13.
share"Its all in the same alphabet soup!"
The PG rating("Parental Guidance") has the most twisted history in MPAA history.
In 1968 when the code began, this was the "M" rating, but the MPAA found that viewers thought "M" was like an "X" ("Suggested for Mature Audiences.")
So they changed it to "GP" to suggest that the movie was "G"-ish -- everybody could go in a family.
But the MPAA found that viewers thought "GP" was too much like a "G." So they changed it to "PG" ("Parental Guidance Suggested.")
Steven Spielberg takes personal credit for "PG-13." There was carping that his "PG" "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" of 1984 was too brutal(heart removal from live man) and should have been rated "R." Spielberg called MPAA officials and recommended -- henceforth -- "PG-13" to accomodate pre-teens and screen out kids for parental guidance.
Spielberg had been there before, as some critics railed against the "PG" given to the bloody "Jaws" of 1975 as wrong, and it should have been an "R." ("The first thing to say about 'Jaws,' wrote Los Angeles Time critic Charles Champlin, "is that the PG rating is seriously, grievously wrong.") But the MPAA said that as the violence in "Jaws" was animal-driven(a shark, not a human psycho killer), the PG was appropriate.
Spielberg also dealt with MPAA issues for Raiders of the Lost Ark (initially rated R--he had to tone down the exploding head near the end of the film) and Poltergeist (rated PG, but on appeal with no modifications made).
PG-13 was created to apply to movies with tremendous appeal to teens and preteens (like Raiders), and too "soft" for R ratings. Nowadays, PG-13 is overused. The PG is more like a "G," and G has become sort of a "cool rating." That is, if a director gets a G, the movie must be "cool" in some way.
It sounds like the MPAA is going back to the early 70s to "re-rate" certain films. Two PGs from that era that would certainly be R, even today, are "Panic in Needle Park" and "The Valachi Papers."
Dude means nice guy. Dude means a regular sort of person.